Nora smiled. "Yes. If you don't mind a wife with literally nothing to wear. Everything I own is on me right now. But won't we have to go to Neoterra?"
Nora laughed and kissed him. "Do you want to wait three months for the radio beams to cross Latham's Triplets?" she asked him.
"It is barely possible that--" his voice trailed away as he eyed a dusty calendar on one of the desks. He went to it and began flipping pages. "It's barely possible that my gang did not turn off the radio beacons for a couple of weeks after I got caught by Westlake," muttered Paul. "Just barely possible--"
He went to the beacon receiver and turned it on. Impatiently he waited for it to warm up.
It came to life and Paul tuned carefully through the band where he expected the beacons to come through. There was silence. He ran the dial far to one side, and then to the other. At one point he picked up some 'side splash' from the big interstellar beacon on Latham Alpha IV, leakage from the tight beam.
"I've caught some of the radiation leakage from the big transmitter. We can use that."
"Nora, if I succeed, I'll ask you to wait another three months. Because if I succeed, I'll want to wait until the Galactic Survey link between Latham Alpha IV and Old Baldy comes in. Then--"
"How are you going to check between here and Alpha IV?"
"Stacey and Morrow and you and I--" he said. His voice trailed away for a moment, and then he forgot what he was going to say because he was busy with the instrument panel.
Albert Donatti had been editor of the Neoterra _News_ through three changes of policy. The _News_, claiming to be politically neutral, was definitely neutral on the coalition side, presenting the autonomy party in less than favorable light, while tending to gloss over any missteps taken by the coalitionists.
Like the other newspapers, the Neoterra _News_ subscribed to the Neosol Wire Service, and so Al Donatti got the same news that the other subscribers did.
Al had been sitting at his desk all morning trying to think up something bright and brilliant to say about Huston and his plans, or something bright and derogatory to say about Hoagland's gang. Even Donatti had become tired of making the same veiled remarks regarding the possibility of furnishing Terran and Solarian news before it was ten months old, but he knew that the one way to hold the home tie was to keep on offering hope.